I run IFW64 (simple mode) on two different machines, one under WIn7 and the other under Win10, and have been for a couple of years now. I periodically go in and clean up the older files. Today when I attempted to do this on the Win7 laptop, I was told (by Windows) that I didn't have administrative rights to do this. Hmmmm, I'm the only user and I have full admin rights.

(See the attachment for this part of the explanation). In particular, I was trying to delete the "0....0B" directory. After the DELETE function failed, I decided to try the COPY function. At every level of the tree structure, the copy failed ... UNTIL I moved above the "TeraByte_TBI_Backups" directory (i.e., the Root directory); then the copy succeeded. I discovered I could copy anywhere on the drive as long as I stayed out of the "TeraByte_TBI_Backups" tree.

Since the last time I did any cleanup on this drive, two things have changed: (1) Microsoft has been doing updates to protect against the security flaws in the Intel processors and (2) I have updated IFW to the latest version (3.16). I'm at a loss as to which, if either, might be the cause.

BTW, this does NOT happen on the WIN10 machine.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I still have space left on the drive, but will be unable to do IFW backups on his machine probably within a month.

Regarding Protectit, I haven't used it, but it's a new component as of version 3.16 the stated purpose of which is to "protect the contents of the TeraByte_TBI_Backups folders from being modified by other Windows applications". See the IFW User's Guide, search for Protectit.

If you use the full suite installer one of the early dialogs "Select Components" allows you to choose whether or not to install Protectit.

Thanks, Bob, for pointing that out. I have a bad habit of not reading the release notes. It's a shame there is only one small paragraph talking about ProtectIt; it gives no mention of how to disable it after it's been enabled.

I've sent an email to Technical Support with a series of questions and will report back here with anything worth passing around.

Ok, the culprit is definitely ProtectIt. And I gather this applies to Simple Mode operation only. AND, the reason I didn't see the problem on my WIN10 machine is because I haven't yet upgraded the software to 3.16.

After talking to Customer Service, I have 4 options:

1. Leave it as-is and let IFW delete space when it starts to run low. I can't do that currently because I am running to different pieces of backup software {IFW and System Restore (Norton Ghost which became Symantec and now is Veritas)} and they both use the same drive. If I let IFW do it's thing it would eat up the rest if the drive and choke out System Restore. I may choose to re partition the drive in half so the two pieces of software don't fight with each other. Or, I can use the "MaxDriveStoreSize" keyword in the IFW.INI file to limit how much IFW uses.

2. I could use TBOSDT and that would allow the deletions. I don't think I have it loaded because I don't do OS deployment. In fact, I didn't even know about it until CS mentioned it.

3. I could start up CMD in Administrative Mode and use the "rd /s" command. I LOVE the fact that we still depend on DOS functionality after all these years; DOS is what I cut my teeth on, which shows my age. How many people even know what "TSR" stands for?

4. I could start up CMD in Administrative Mode and use the "sc stop protectit" command, which would then allow me to do the deletion, and then use "sc start protectit" to restart it after I'm done. Comment in #3 applies here as well.

Sooooo, there you have it. Bottom line: there is NO PROBLEM with the software. I was having trouble because (1) I wasn't aware of the new functionality and (2) my use of two pieces of software that shared the same drive was causing problems for both pieces. I'm going for door #1 and re-partition the drive (or spend some money and get a second drive; last time I checked the price is down to $.025 per GB compared to $20,000/GB when I started at Compaq) to avoid the conflict.